Well, all I know is that his ideology gets so twisted in the translation through other people, that the only thing I'm sure about him is that he's fat, hairy, and he doesn't take showers.
Not that it makes him any of a lesser person, but he makes a poor spokesperson for the movement among common, shallow-minded people that democratically run the planet (as pawns for the politicians that really run things). Just like many people would rather not stare too at Bill Gates, either.
Then again, it's possible that RMS is a first class hypocrite as he is a first class programmer. But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt in that dispute.:)
You know, when I was in high school, I had an underground newspaper. A lot of kids liked it. A lot of kids didn't care about it. And a few kids were assinine enough to call me names like "fag", "dork", and "ass-kisser" as I handed out my newspapers. Now, there were kids who physically threatened me at times, but I was no pushover... I fought back, and won almost all of the time... but if it didn't come to that, I simply politely ignored them and continued with my business. I figured that I had better things to do than waste my time reacting to every loser who wanted to make me look stupid. In general, my newspaper was a success, and I remember who read it and enjoyed it rather than those who were pricks about it.
So why can't you guys do that with Linux and Microsoft? Sticks and stones (and lawsuits and anti-competitive measures) may break your bones, but names won't ever hurt you. You can't spent a lot of time worrying about this crap. Just write good programs, put together a good operating system to fit peoples' needs, and you will be a success no matter what. I honestly don't know why you get so worked up over nothing, really...
Not entirely accurate
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Reel.com is on the list. Pay 'em a visit at www.reel.com/reel. asp and see if they're dead yet.
*shrug*
Aside from that, it's impressive how many of these companies went belly up... and it's FAR from a complete listing. Of course, now the industry as a whole is getting swamped by newly-unemployed job candidates, venture capital has dried up, and all the suriving companies are either taking cost-saving measures or are clinging onto life. I know it's fun to laugh at this stuff, but even for the seemingly secure working professionals out there, this changes the face of the industry for a while, and not for the better.
Makes me wish I skipped college to get in on the speculative bubble. (Don't flame saying I shouldn't have wished that - cause I got flamed last week for saying that my college education was very solid, because I don't have all the practical skills that someone from a "Learn Java Quick" course has)...
Yea, but the problem is, you just named 6 people... Microsoft employs 30,000 very talented people in different fields. Plus, they don't just hire programmers... they have lawyers, managers, marketing people, etc. And on top of that, for every department where Linux has one or zero people working for it, MS has a team of very bright people making it work.
If Linux had that entire staff working for them, Microsoft would almost certainly be out of business. But if you do that, I assure you those 30,000 people are going to other jobs, and probably few to none of them will work on free software. So, give some credit to MS for paying those people to contribute to the world of software, when those people otherwise probably wouldn't have.
Now curse out Microsoft for all those bugs in their software... including the one in Freecell that allows me to CTRL-ALT-DEL close it avoid a loss!!!
While we were all vigorously arguing on Slashdot, they snuck in the room and put little black boxes between our network interfaces that record a micropayment for every TCP/IP packet.
Nice diversion!
Sarcasm aside, Microsoft is still a big corporation... and smaller means quicker. So it's not really about Microsoft sneaking anything past us... it's about the quality of our decisions and actions, and how effective they are to counter moves by Microsoft.
But hey, the best solution is to just give in, buy their stock, and move to a remote Pacific island to live off the profits. Or, alternately, move in with Stallman and start amassing the GPL cult that will eventually take over the world like... Pac Man...
Re:Unions are not really a good thing
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You're right, this is an example of a bad apple of a union.
The solution to this isn't to disregard unions entirely, but to consider the benefits of a union that's run by more honest and less shady people.
(FYI I'm neither for nor against them in IT, but I am unionized in one of my current jobs and there are some benefits to that, even if it isn't worth what they take out of my pay).
First, I never said I didn't want to work long hours at all. I just think that working long hours for a long time is not something to be for granted, yet the industry has a bad habit of doing that. It's not a matter of "I won't", rather it's a matter of "I'm not willing to do it until I retire".
Second, CS grads are not a dime a dozen. Enrollments are down, actually. It's tech workers in general that are a dime a dozen... a small percent of those (not as big as you would think it would be) have a four year BS degree in CS. (that's right, four years I made it in... most college kids in any major stretch it out to five years, but I worked hard through illness and bad semesters to get out on time... but that's irrelevant) Unfortunately, colleges aren't in the game of technical training, and the job market is focused on technically trained individuals at the moment. If you're a fresh college grad, there's no basic entry-level jobs being offered at the moment, not with the industry where it is (in carnage)...
Third... although I may have had some bad foresight as a high school student as to where the industry would be the moment I graduated (things were VERY different last April, for example), are you really saying that all IT workers must commit to at least 80 hours a week working or forget even trying to get your foot in the door? That's ridiculous. If you love something and it's your own thing, then I understand working 80 hours + a week for it. If you own your own business, for example, then I can see that kind of commitment. However, if you're working under 50 layers of management, and you have no chance of being promoted without an MBA AND a CS degree, then why work yourself to death for someone else? It's the rat race... many industries have went through this slaughter/burnout cycle before, and it's a shame that no one learns from history. Rent "Wall Street" from Blockbuster and see what I'm talking about. Surely there's room for workaholics in this world, and I can choose to be bitter about it or I can do something about it... but I shouldn't be forced into being a workaholic just to get a job in the profession. Because in that case, I'd rather start my own software company, and maybe I'll be working 110 hours a week but at least at the end of the day, it's for me, not for someone else who doesn't give a fuck about me...
No I know this... except Slashdot posts these stories like they're FuckedCompany, except that everyone around here only does the dance of joy when a competitor dies. When a Linux company bites the dust, it's like "Oh we lost something important and it's terrible", even though 95% of the crowd is probably divided amongst three not-about-to-fade-away distros.
I dunno. I suppose I don't care about Digital Convergance at all, let em bite the dust. But everyone around here feels the same way about Microsoft, and I guess I'm more concerned about that attitude more than anything... cause for the time being, I guess we all kinda need MS in the economy and in the computer world. When they screw up, then I'll be indifferent about their passing, as well. (However, I get the feeling Slashdot won't be outliving MS... and there will be no one here to do the dance of joy then...)
Yea. I'll find a job when I mature and start lying about having 2 years experience in Java, not a minute before then.
I don't have a problem with the long hours. Really. At my one internship, I worked in the city from 9am to 9pm sometimes, and it didn't bother me. Right now I have a seasonal job where I work difficult 11 - 12 hour shifts. At school, I used to work from 5pm until 3am, and then I had to wash dishes and mop the floor until 4am.
I'm not saying I WANT to work 60 hours a week for someone else, but that I can if I have to. It's just that I can't see myself doing it unless I have some faith in the company, and knowing what the industry is like, I have little faith for anything anymore.
I resent the fact... not just for me, but for everyone else as well... that people are now expected to work way more than 40 hours a week at tech jobs, especially when the US already has the longest workweek in the modern world. I'm not saying I won't pay my dues NOW, but I'm afraid down the line that I won't be able to watch my kids' little league games or take my wife out to dinner without getting a dirty look from my boss. The solution to that ISN'T to drink more coffee.
Of course, hackers are notorious for being selfish, arrogant people, so being a hacker for 80 hours a week comes way ahead of family and friends, I know.
By the way, I chose the profession in high school... four years ago when things were a lot different. Sorry that I can't predict the future and know ahead of time when I'm 17 that everythings gonna go belly up... well, I kinda figured that out when I was 18, but I stuck with my major so I'd graduate within four years. And before you ridicule me for that, I'll just let you know that a fifth year meant $20,000 more in loans, and I graduated technically EARLY to avoid that scenario. And I'll take whatever I want to take in college, and it's nobody else's business. Leave deciding the merits of a BSCS that I may not use to my own thoughts.
I'm a moron for leaving the industry if I wind up doing that? Well, you're a moron for staying in it. Most of you "hackers" are gonna get pushed around by businessmen for the rest of your lives, cause you don't know any better, and just because they can. 60 hour workweeks have nothing to do with being hackers... there's plenty of people who work that hard not knowing that someone at the top takes it for granted.
Finally, it's exactly that attitude - that my computer science education is worthless, but someone who knows Java and nothing else is golden - that's gonna sink the industry again when everyone realizes they've got idiot employees who know nothing beyond an introductory CS course. And, of course, that's one of the reasons why I don't want to be in the industry... cause I don't want to get caught on the sinking ship like all these stupid fuckin people that just got laid off with their jaws on the floor. Their lives are a joke, they can't afford the Mercedes payments anymore, and now they live in homeless shelters. I deserve better for myself.
Yea, but that doesn't qualify as "cushy". They pay minimum wage. Most adults today cannot live on minimum wage alone unless they REALLY scrimp, and I don't expect most college-educated adults more than 2 years out of college to go back to living in a dormitory-like apartment and to give up all expenses. It just can't happen... medical, car, and rental insurance are enough with food and rent to make $6/hr unlivable. Bump it up to $10 an hour and then you can do it... but the economy can't afford to have so many $10/hr positions to compensate for layoffs. For jobs $13/hr, you still need training and skills, AND friends in the business... those jobs are just as hard to get as those CEO of dot-com company jobs.
In all fairness to laid off employees, McDonalds is pretty much rock bottom. But still, pride aside, the math doesn't work out... even working at McDonalds full-time hours (something they don't always let you do, so you have to moonlight at Wendys) will not pay living expenses in the cities without some serious cost-sharing and cost-cutting measures. Although I'd surely like to hear of someone that has done it.
Yea, exactly... I can't search "entry level" cause all I get is "no entry level"...
I guess that since it's an employer's market now, they have the luxury of requesting specific skills and not having to do training. Screw 'em, cause when I start my own company and I buy one of these places full of skilled 'tards, the axe will fall swiftly and harshly. *giggle*
We're paying for the mistakes of all the people who've been around for a few years, honestly. They don't care about the pipeline, and they're just killing the industry more. Furthermore, half the world is in denial about it, saying "Oh there's plenty of jobs out there! You can make lots of money." Basically, it's like we're all a big bowl full of brown M&M's, and the companies want individual flavors of Skittles.
Companies are like that though. And if we were stupid enough to work for such a company, you know that they'd lay us off in a second if they didn't need those specific skills anymore... if they go from Unix to NT, they just fire all the Unix people and hire college grads who spent 7 years at college while working full time at an NT house. Then they go back to Unix. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.
Start your own company. Do whatever with it. Just don't fall for the crap of the business world. I know that's what I'm doing after my first 2 years, surely...
Yea I had fun. And now I have a life. In the grand scheme of things, though, not going to CMU isn't a stupid decision... it's a good or bad decision depending on priorities. For example, I wanted to do Comp Sci, but I also wanted to spend at least half of my time doing things outside of my major. Since I wouldn't have been able to do that at CMU probably, I made a good decision.
To you, it's a bad decision. To you, now I don't deserve a job. Well guess what... I've got a BS in Comp Sci, and a good head on my shoulders. And I'm not going into the IT industry because of pricks like you... I'm holding out for a job in media or publishing, cause I like doing that more, and I like the people more. Now go play with your expensive silicon toys and obscure programming languages, ass.
Of course, this is Slashdot, so there's the usual "We hate corporations and they should all die" bias floating around. I just love playing devil's advocate though:)
And NO I'm not a karma whore. As a matter of fact, I've upset a few people over the past few days and lost four karma points and gained none. Not that I care in the grand scheme of things, but sometimes it's just the way it's done... like 5 days after a post, for revenge... but screw it, you only get to live once, and I'm glad to stir the pot every once in a while...
Wow... and this is from someone at U.Penn as well, which is regarded as a better school than mine. All I have to say about my ability to get a job is: Yikes!
That was very well put, I attempted to say it better but I didn't quite. While it's certainly nice for some students to be lucky, it's still a bit shortsighted for a student at the best CS school in the world to say that, based on his experience, there's plenty of opportunity out there. The internship market AND the job market suck right now, and it doesn't help that I can't see myself working at half the jobs I apply to in desperation to get rent money. A year ago it wasn't like this, but right now we're paying for all the mistakes that were made in the dot-com boom.
Now are *you* gonna feed their kids and pay their rent?
I mean, not that they didn't do some assinine things as a company, but I'd like to see a company like that reform, rather than bite the dust and leave even more people unemployed. Besides, it's not like CueCat was an entirely USELESS technology... apparently you people thought it was good enough to try and hack.
I'm not necessarily mourning their death, but I think it's a bit tasteless and uncouth to be dancing on their ashes, eh?
Escorted from the building? Hah hah. It's your snobbish achievement-oriented attitude that's responsible for the fucked-up situation in the tech sector in the first place. Aggressive, stupid, and arrogant, that's what it is.
Yes, the best jobs, promotions, titles, money, etc. should go to those who work for it. Well I fucking worked for it at a four-year institution, and I had to sit home for the summer after I busted my ass for 6 months trying to find an internship. But YOU assume that, because I didn't spend ALL my time doing it, that I don't deserve anything. Well, REALLY? Maybe I should just walk away from the industry altogether, because I don't obviously have the obssessive/compulsive brainwashed dedication it takes to slave away for snotty brainless dot-com managers who can't even run a simple business right.
I'm not saying natural born white people have a disadvantage for working hard... they actually have the advantage of racial bias and fluent English on their side, sadly. But if you've been paying attention in the last 10 years in this country, top notch colleges put diversity ahead of achievement, and therefore you wind up with the best schools accepting all the rich white kids and a lot of normal, but super-achieving, foreign and rural-based students. I know, cause I had the same exact problem getting into HIGH SCHOOL, as it was that competitve!!! Talk about a fucking rat race.
Anyway, the foreign kids have nothing better to do than to work their asses off... after all, if they want to keep their sponsorship, they better be the best! I certainly admire that kind of tenacity and dedication to work, but I've said before, I don't need to lay those extreme expectations on myself... they would occlude my other goals in life, such as eliminating stress, keeping my friends and family important, and maintaining my interests outside of the field of computers.
Unfortunately, the shortsighted market decides to hire skills over brains, and the rat race continues. Granted, it's definitely a reward for a lot of hard work, but I achieved a lot in college myself... I have an honors minor, two internships, and I'm provably very intelligent. And yet, I don't even think that entitles me to anything... I have to work hard to get it. But right now there's no opportunites on the market, and even these CMU kids getting internships are gonna get royally shafted when they graduate and their former employers decide not to retain their previously loyal interns for a career. So then they start from square one, where I am right now. I can't be bitter, really... they wasted more time doing useless hard work and they can't do better than me, so they should be bitter toward me!
Not only did I not ask for freebies, I also love how you assume I'm some party animal! How many times do you drink per week? You're probably hung over right now! And CMU students earn internships, except it's CMU, and I guarantee they get more opportunities there than other students in CS programs do. Hey, I got into CMU in the first place but decided not to go, why can't I get a internship at Microsoft? (I applied but didn't get one last summer) Because I went to another school? Do we really not work as hard at my school, one of the top 25 public schools in the nation and certainly in the upper tier of prestige? My school has a very good reputation. But the simple matter is, CMU students do get more opportunites than we did. It wouldn't be so bad if the hiring market wasn't totally fucked up and if all you Gen X people didn't crash the industry with all these high-flying ideas that sunk to the bottom.
I don't pity myself, though... I just curse out those of you who are ridiculous enough to continue on this track. I say, "Don't want to hire me? Your loss." One of my interview companies, a fast growing telecommunications company in the area, about two months ago told me that I was overqualified and that I'd probably get bored. I'm confident, I'm smart, and I didn't waste my time learning all kinds of skills that will be obsolete in a year - I went after general knowledge, and now I can learn anything easily and adapt to any situation. Additionally, I'm a normal person and I'm easy to work with. Tell me that this makes me a far worse job candidate than someone who can only say that they have "1 year + Java".
That last line is the clincher though. Do you have prospective candidates escorted out of the building on a regular basis? People like you deserve to lick the crap out of public toilets. Then we'll see what happens, we'll see if you can maintain your hubris when the shit hits the fan for you.
Damn that's a rosy picture... but then again, you're at CMU.
I just graduated from a respectable school with a good CS department, and here's what I found about internships... I couldn't get any. Well, actually, I did get TWO, but I struggled every summer to find them, and had little to no luck.
Yea, the one internship was with school for a class I had, and I had to take a lot of initiative to get into that program, but I did it, and that's a feather in my cap. The other internship, well, I had to PAY out $200 to get it. Oh, and both were totally unpaid. And I've been looking during the summer for the past three years, and in the past two years I've gotten absolutely stonewalled looking for internships or part-time tech positions. Maybe because I was living in one place for college and looking in another place where I wanted to be, but I had constrictions on where I actually had to live for the summer and that's just my tough luck.
The internship market is NOT easy. Companies doing massive layoffs are not quick to take on interns, as they represent an expense they don't need at this point. The lack of companies to accept internships after the recent failings is killing the market as well. Finally, there's a whole bunch of kids like you competing cutthroat for these positions... and I didn't want to go here, but when it comes to me, Mr. Normal whitebread college student who has a non-tech related part time job and has friends in his spare time, I can't compete with any of those foreign-descent kids at CMU that work all the time, dedicate every second of their being to being a total CS freak, and who never stop to smell the roses. Those are unrealistic expectations to lay on myself, and I'm glad that I am who I am, at the expense of me not being a smug, cocky bastard who doesn't know how to talk to real people or hasn't seen the sun in 5 years just so that they can work for someone else the rest of their lives.
Not that I'm insinuating you're a smug cocky bastard, but I've met many of that type. Especially from CMU. Hopefully working at MS doesn't do worse things to your demeanor.
Oh by the way, I got into CMU, but I chose not to go there... no girls and no social life. But it's a good school for people willing to put in that level of work. I'm just saying, not everyone can be that guy, and not everyone should have to be. And I disagree with the concept that only the top 1% of applicants should be offered anything decent at this point... which is pretty much what happened in your case. The wealth and knowledge should be spread a little.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy the newspaper and look through the classifieds...
Well, Starbucks ain't paying 9+ an hour, but yea, that's out there.
FYI I'm doing what you went through, although I have to admit I'm living in NJ for the same rent and living somewhat ideally at the moment. Not that I can do much going out and spending, but I have what I have from college and I'm happy with it. I also have a seasonal job to hold me over, but it's not the cure to my problems.
I did want to dispute you on the availability of part-time, menial, and/or temporary work. Tech people have three big problems with that right now:
1. They aren't the most qualified people for the job. Believe it or not, teenagers in high school are more qualified to work at the supermarket than we are. Why? Cause they fit the needs of the employer better, in the eyes of the employer. We're just gonna run off when we get a real job. They might stay longer. I know, cause I went through this already with a store manager...
2. They are overqualified. Being overqualified scares people. Especially that big bad tech resume... there's what I call the "technical resume conundrum". Basically, if you're applying to a technical field, anything that's not specific to the field is irrelevant and should be left off (that camp counseling job with the Special Olympics for example), as it only pushes out of the way more things that you can tell white lies about in the technical field. But, apply for a job anywhere else with a technical resume, and you won't get the job - all that mumbo jumbo scares off the prospective employers, and your resume doesn't seem to contain any down-to-earth business experience anyway.
3. Finally, and this is the killer: The market is flooded with service and temporary job seekers at the moment... especially because it's the summer and all the kids are home, but more so because of the layoffs in every sector. If you live in a substantially large urban area (like NY), the chance of landing a really cushy job over $6 an hour is almost nil, cause there's thousands of poor people that would take that pay in a second, and thousands of temps who are in line already at the local staffing agency. But working for $6 an hour doesn't pay $600 a month rent unless you work 160 hours a month part time... which is possible, certainly, but then you have utilities, car insurance, medical coverage, food, gas for the car, etc... so basically look at working 60 hours part time a week, most likely at 2 or 3 different jobs. And when does that leave you time each day to look for another job? It's not like you're working in the office and have a computer to use to hit Monster.com every 1/2 hour... (granted, that scenario is bleak... working 40 hours a week at $12 an hour is definitely enough to cover expenses, I agree on that... but still, it's been 3 weeks that I've been home, and nothing has appeared yet. I'm patient, though)
Remember those things, be more aggressive, and use every little last bit of networking power you have... and you might find something. I hope I do... I'm a BS in CIS with an MIS minor and two internships completed at big companies, plus I know what I'm doing, but it hasn't been enough - yet.
As a recent college grad who has been looking for a job for 6 months now, in vain, I can definitely back this up. Wanna see what came in my inbox today from Dice.com???...
"Software Opportunity for BSCS and EE Honors Graduates or candidates just graduating from a Masters programming CS or EE. Candidates mush have a GPA of 3.9+ from a top tier school. Also considering candidates with 1 year of experience but the same academic requirements apply (GPA 3.9+)."
Even the job title was "Junior Software Engineer (GPA 3.9+), BSEE or BSCS". This isn't typical, though; the typical listing is one of two things, either "This is NOT an entry level position, no entry level candidates please, entry level candidates suck" (about 85% of the listings online) or it's something like this: "Looking for bright young motivated enthusiastic individual fresh out of college, great entry level position... Requirements: 2+ years employment non-educational experience in Java, C++, Web Design, WebSphere, Flash, Perl, Cold Fusion, ASP, AS/400, DB2, COBOL, NT, SMS, SMS Installer, Oracle, TCP/IP, IOS, and anything else the HR department found in a computer dictionary today".
And there's the days when my Dice.com jobhunter subscription returns a blank page. That's like opening the classifieds and seeing that the help wanted section was replaced with the TV listings.
Luckily, my rent and living expenses are not that high, I can fall back on my parents for some things, and a seasonal job is holding me over for at least a few months, if not more. But the best of luck to all you Valley people... what can I say, move to Mexico and work for an American car company down there...
- then you have a Linux distro that spans 10 DVDs just so you can include every single doo-dad program (and its libraries) on the planet. Next thing you know, MS starts advertising themselves as the quick and easy OS that needs only one CD to install. That, my friends, is hell.
There's a difference between learning the stuff in your spare time and needing to have 1 or 2 years experience in a real job to answer most of the classified ads on the market. I never wanted to learn any languages just for the hell of it, but even if I did, I would have had to do something serious with that knowledge to reap the benefit of having spent ANY time with it. Even my college experience in the stuff I learned is not good enough for most of these HR-dept. placed job listings.
I was happy enough in college doing school, working a part time job, and reading Slashdot to keep familiar with things. Perhaps I would have served my own knowledge well by doing some more independent study with programming topics, but the only thing that would have helped me get a job would have been to work at a local corporation for one or two years while in school doing that stuff. Otherwise... hey, I've got all the free time in the world right now, and my roommate is taking a Java class and he's got a book on it, so I could learn from him. But that doesn't meet the lofty expectations employers have for entry-level candidates right now...
LOL... that's the funniest thing I've read today. Granted, it's only 9am but...
Yea I ran into that problem with my compilers class last semester. Half the class did too. Like, we're trying to write a lexical analyzer, using Lex, and I wrote the whole thing, it didn't work, and couldn't figure out what the friggen problem was... and it was that exact problem, I corrected everything to == and it compiled fine. At that point I hadn't touched C++ in about 2 years. I hate college.
This is a great idea, and it's exactly what my CS program did in college. We learned C, C++, Lisp, SPARC Assembly, and Prolog at least in the core cirriculum. Java, SQL, several flavors of Lisp, and perhaps some other programming-type languages were taught in elective courses. VB was available in the business department.
The major problem is that after all this time spent on DIFFERENT languages, I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none... I don't even feel comfortable coding C++ anymore just because I haven't done it for at least 2 1/2 years: it wasn't asked of me toward the end of my program. The only above language that I did NOT get to take is Java, because of scheduling difficulties, and now I sorely regret that... because now I'm looking for a part time job to make ends meet as a recent BS-CS grad with an MIS minor and two completed internships. Yea, life sucks sometimes, but whatever.
Point is, I may have a diverse background in languages, but that doesn't help me professionally. I still wonder why I spent all that time learning all those languages and no one made sure that I would be able to apply my skills in the real world.
I mean, if you're gonna teach a course on a subject, maybe you shouldn't design it around trying to make money off the concept. But if you're going to assemble a department and an educational program that people will be paying in excess of $20,000 a year to enroll in, then perhaps more than FOR loops and system calls should be included in the bunch.
This is the problem with Java though. Teaching Java instead of C++ is a cheap way out... it's not supplementing a good program with job skills, it's replacing a good program with the language of the year. It's the dumb way of answering the question of "How are we ever going to use this stuff?" Instead of teaching them what they should know, they'll teach them what they want to know. That's not always good. In this case, it's flat out horrible. But I suppose it'll make many people happy as long as no one figures out that a Java-based CS program is perhaps as bad as all the Visual Basic courses they teach over in the business school...
Although I'm not one for censorship, the idea that someone has to IDENTIFY themselves when they say something is a fine concept in my eyes. Yes, there are certain cases where anonymity is a nice thing, but it's a priviledge, not a right in my eyes.
In this context, commercial entities must not send unsolicited mail without providing some sort of identification of origin... but how bad could that be? I mean, how shady must a company be to provide a service without providing accurate reply-to information? Perhaps I do approve of anonymity in private communications, but certainly not in commercial ones... I like to be able to opt-out of spam. And I do receive newsletters and e-mails from businesses intentionally, so I'm not against the concept of commercial mail; this ruling only helps us out.
As for the people who now have to reveal themselves to their victims: oh boo-hoo. You had the opportunity to use a novel marketing mechanism, and your industry blew it by abusing the priviledge, and now we want to take it away from you because of that. Or, not even take it away, but give ourselves some way to avoid the inconvenience caused by some of you porn/penis enlargement/make money/win a trip to Portugal freaks.
I look forward to commercial e-mail that doesn't abuse my attention span or my inbox in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
A $5,000 distro?
:)
Well, all I know is that his ideology gets so twisted in the translation through other people, that the only thing I'm sure about him is that he's fat, hairy, and he doesn't take showers.
Not that it makes him any of a lesser person, but he makes a poor spokesperson for the movement among common, shallow-minded people that democratically run the planet (as pawns for the politicians that really run things). Just like many people would rather not stare too at Bill Gates, either.
Then again, it's possible that RMS is a first class hypocrite as he is a first class programmer. But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt in that dispute.
You know, when I was in high school, I had an underground newspaper. A lot of kids liked it. A lot of kids didn't care about it. And a few kids were assinine enough to call me names like "fag", "dork", and "ass-kisser" as I handed out my newspapers. Now, there were kids who physically threatened me at times, but I was no pushover... I fought back, and won almost all of the time... but if it didn't come to that, I simply politely ignored them and continued with my business. I figured that I had better things to do than waste my time reacting to every loser who wanted to make me look stupid. In general, my newspaper was a success, and I remember who read it and enjoyed it rather than those who were pricks about it.
So why can't you guys do that with Linux and Microsoft? Sticks and stones (and lawsuits and anti-competitive measures) may break your bones, but names won't ever hurt you. You can't spent a lot of time worrying about this crap. Just write good programs, put together a good operating system to fit peoples' needs, and you will be a success no matter what. I honestly don't know why you get so worked up over nothing, really...
Reel.com is on the list. Pay 'em a visit at www.reel.com/reel. asp and see if they're dead yet.
*shrug*
Aside from that, it's impressive how many of these companies went belly up... and it's FAR from a complete listing. Of course, now the industry as a whole is getting swamped by newly-unemployed job candidates, venture capital has dried up, and all the suriving companies are either taking cost-saving measures or are clinging onto life. I know it's fun to laugh at this stuff, but even for the seemingly secure working professionals out there, this changes the face of the industry for a while, and not for the better.
Makes me wish I skipped college to get in on the speculative bubble. (Don't flame saying I shouldn't have wished that - cause I got flamed last week for saying that my college education was very solid, because I don't have all the practical skills that someone from a "Learn Java Quick" course has)...
Yea, but the problem is, you just named 6 people... Microsoft employs 30,000 very talented people in different fields. Plus, they don't just hire programmers... they have lawyers, managers, marketing people, etc. And on top of that, for every department where Linux has one or zero people working for it, MS has a team of very bright people making it work.
If Linux had that entire staff working for them, Microsoft would almost certainly be out of business. But if you do that, I assure you those 30,000 people are going to other jobs, and probably few to none of them will work on free software. So, give some credit to MS for paying those people to contribute to the world of software, when those people otherwise probably wouldn't have.
Now curse out Microsoft for all those bugs in their software... including the one in Freecell that allows me to CTRL-ALT-DEL close it avoid a loss!!!
While we were all vigorously arguing on Slashdot, they snuck in the room and put little black boxes between our network interfaces that record a micropayment for every TCP/IP packet.
Nice diversion!
Sarcasm aside, Microsoft is still a big corporation... and smaller means quicker. So it's not really about Microsoft sneaking anything past us... it's about the quality of our decisions and actions, and how effective they are to counter moves by Microsoft.
But hey, the best solution is to just give in, buy their stock, and move to a remote Pacific island to live off the profits. Or, alternately, move in with Stallman and start amassing the GPL cult that will eventually take over the world like... Pac Man...
when will LinuxOne show a profit? :)
You're right, this is an example of a bad apple of a union.
The solution to this isn't to disregard unions entirely, but to consider the benefits of a union that's run by more honest and less shady people.
(FYI I'm neither for nor against them in IT, but I am unionized in one of my current jobs and there are some benefits to that, even if it isn't worth what they take out of my pay).
First, I never said I didn't want to work long hours at all. I just think that working long hours for a long time is not something to be for granted, yet the industry has a bad habit of doing that. It's not a matter of "I won't", rather it's a matter of "I'm not willing to do it until I retire".
Second, CS grads are not a dime a dozen. Enrollments are down, actually. It's tech workers in general that are a dime a dozen... a small percent of those (not as big as you would think it would be) have a four year BS degree in CS. (that's right, four years I made it in... most college kids in any major stretch it out to five years, but I worked hard through illness and bad semesters to get out on time... but that's irrelevant) Unfortunately, colleges aren't in the game of technical training, and the job market is focused on technically trained individuals at the moment. If you're a fresh college grad, there's no basic entry-level jobs being offered at the moment, not with the industry where it is (in carnage)...
Third... although I may have had some bad foresight as a high school student as to where the industry would be the moment I graduated (things were VERY different last April, for example), are you really saying that all IT workers must commit to at least 80 hours a week working or forget even trying to get your foot in the door? That's ridiculous. If you love something and it's your own thing, then I understand working 80 hours + a week for it. If you own your own business, for example, then I can see that kind of commitment. However, if you're working under 50 layers of management, and you have no chance of being promoted without an MBA AND a CS degree, then why work yourself to death for someone else? It's the rat race... many industries have went through this slaughter/burnout cycle before, and it's a shame that no one learns from history. Rent "Wall Street" from Blockbuster and see what I'm talking about. Surely there's room for workaholics in this world, and I can choose to be bitter about it or I can do something about it... but I shouldn't be forced into being a workaholic just to get a job in the profession. Because in that case, I'd rather start my own software company, and maybe I'll be working 110 hours a week but at least at the end of the day, it's for me, not for someone else who doesn't give a fuck about me...
No I know this... except Slashdot posts these stories like they're FuckedCompany, except that everyone around here only does the dance of joy when a competitor dies. When a Linux company bites the dust, it's like "Oh we lost something important and it's terrible", even though 95% of the crowd is probably divided amongst three not-about-to-fade-away distros.
I dunno. I suppose I don't care about Digital Convergance at all, let em bite the dust. But everyone around here feels the same way about Microsoft, and I guess I'm more concerned about that attitude more than anything... cause for the time being, I guess we all kinda need MS in the economy and in the computer world. When they screw up, then I'll be indifferent about their passing, as well. (However, I get the feeling Slashdot won't be outliving MS... and there will be no one here to do the dance of joy then...)
Yea. I'll find a job when I mature and start lying about having 2 years experience in Java, not a minute before then.
I don't have a problem with the long hours. Really. At my one internship, I worked in the city from 9am to 9pm sometimes, and it didn't bother me. Right now I have a seasonal job where I work difficult 11 - 12 hour shifts. At school, I used to work from 5pm until 3am, and then I had to wash dishes and mop the floor until 4am.
I'm not saying I WANT to work 60 hours a week for someone else, but that I can if I have to. It's just that I can't see myself doing it unless I have some faith in the company, and knowing what the industry is like, I have little faith for anything anymore.
I resent the fact... not just for me, but for everyone else as well... that people are now expected to work way more than 40 hours a week at tech jobs, especially when the US already has the longest workweek in the modern world. I'm not saying I won't pay my dues NOW, but I'm afraid down the line that I won't be able to watch my kids' little league games or take my wife out to dinner without getting a dirty look from my boss. The solution to that ISN'T to drink more coffee.
Of course, hackers are notorious for being selfish, arrogant people, so being a hacker for 80 hours a week comes way ahead of family and friends, I know.
By the way, I chose the profession in high school... four years ago when things were a lot different. Sorry that I can't predict the future and know ahead of time when I'm 17 that everythings gonna go belly up... well, I kinda figured that out when I was 18, but I stuck with my major so I'd graduate within four years. And before you ridicule me for that, I'll just let you know that a fifth year meant $20,000 more in loans, and I graduated technically EARLY to avoid that scenario. And I'll take whatever I want to take in college, and it's nobody else's business. Leave deciding the merits of a BSCS that I may not use to my own thoughts.
I'm a moron for leaving the industry if I wind up doing that? Well, you're a moron for staying in it. Most of you "hackers" are gonna get pushed around by businessmen for the rest of your lives, cause you don't know any better, and just because they can. 60 hour workweeks have nothing to do with being hackers... there's plenty of people who work that hard not knowing that someone at the top takes it for granted.
Finally, it's exactly that attitude - that my computer science education is worthless, but someone who knows Java and nothing else is golden - that's gonna sink the industry again when everyone realizes they've got idiot employees who know nothing beyond an introductory CS course. And, of course, that's one of the reasons why I don't want to be in the industry... cause I don't want to get caught on the sinking ship like all these stupid fuckin people that just got laid off with their jaws on the floor. Their lives are a joke, they can't afford the Mercedes payments anymore, and now they live in homeless shelters. I deserve better for myself.
Yea, but that doesn't qualify as "cushy". They pay minimum wage. Most adults today cannot live on minimum wage alone unless they REALLY scrimp, and I don't expect most college-educated adults more than 2 years out of college to go back to living in a dormitory-like apartment and to give up all expenses. It just can't happen... medical, car, and rental insurance are enough with food and rent to make $6/hr unlivable. Bump it up to $10 an hour and then you can do it... but the economy can't afford to have so many $10/hr positions to compensate for layoffs. For jobs $13/hr, you still need training and skills, AND friends in the business... those jobs are just as hard to get as those CEO of dot-com company jobs.
In all fairness to laid off employees, McDonalds is pretty much rock bottom. But still, pride aside, the math doesn't work out... even working at McDonalds full-time hours (something they don't always let you do, so you have to moonlight at Wendys) will not pay living expenses in the cities without some serious cost-sharing and cost-cutting measures. Although I'd surely like to hear of someone that has done it.
Yea, exactly... I can't search "entry level" cause all I get is "no entry level"...
I guess that since it's an employer's market now, they have the luxury of requesting specific skills and not having to do training. Screw 'em, cause when I start my own company and I buy one of these places full of skilled 'tards, the axe will fall swiftly and harshly. *giggle*
We're paying for the mistakes of all the people who've been around for a few years, honestly. They don't care about the pipeline, and they're just killing the industry more. Furthermore, half the world is in denial about it, saying "Oh there's plenty of jobs out there! You can make lots of money." Basically, it's like we're all a big bowl full of brown M&M's, and the companies want individual flavors of Skittles.
Companies are like that though. And if we were stupid enough to work for such a company, you know that they'd lay us off in a second if they didn't need those specific skills anymore... if they go from Unix to NT, they just fire all the Unix people and hire college grads who spent 7 years at college while working full time at an NT house. Then they go back to Unix. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.
Start your own company. Do whatever with it. Just don't fall for the crap of the business world. I know that's what I'm doing after my first 2 years, surely...
Yea I had fun. And now I have a life. In the grand scheme of things, though, not going to CMU isn't a stupid decision... it's a good or bad decision depending on priorities. For example, I wanted to do Comp Sci, but I also wanted to spend at least half of my time doing things outside of my major. Since I wouldn't have been able to do that at CMU probably, I made a good decision.
To you, it's a bad decision. To you, now I don't deserve a job. Well guess what... I've got a BS in Comp Sci, and a good head on my shoulders. And I'm not going into the IT industry because of pricks like you... I'm holding out for a job in media or publishing, cause I like doing that more, and I like the people more. Now go play with your expensive silicon toys and obscure programming languages, ass.
Agreed. Well put.
:)
Of course, this is Slashdot, so there's the usual "We hate corporations and they should all die" bias floating around. I just love playing devil's advocate though
And NO I'm not a karma whore. As a matter of fact, I've upset a few people over the past few days and lost four karma points and gained none. Not that I care in the grand scheme of things, but sometimes it's just the way it's done... like 5 days after a post, for revenge... but screw it, you only get to live once, and I'm glad to stir the pot every once in a while...
Wow... and this is from someone at U.Penn as well, which is regarded as a better school than mine. All I have to say about my ability to get a job is: Yikes!
That was very well put, I attempted to say it better but I didn't quite. While it's certainly nice for some students to be lucky, it's still a bit shortsighted for a student at the best CS school in the world to say that, based on his experience, there's plenty of opportunity out there. The internship market AND the job market suck right now, and it doesn't help that I can't see myself working at half the jobs I apply to in desperation to get rent money. A year ago it wasn't like this, but right now we're paying for all the mistakes that were made in the dot-com boom.
Good luck on your job searching.
So they passed on as a company. Big deal.
Now are *you* gonna feed their kids and pay their rent?
I mean, not that they didn't do some assinine things as a company, but I'd like to see a company like that reform, rather than bite the dust and leave even more people unemployed. Besides, it's not like CueCat was an entirely USELESS technology... apparently you people thought it was good enough to try and hack.
I'm not necessarily mourning their death, but I think it's a bit tasteless and uncouth to be dancing on their ashes, eh?
Escorted from the building? Hah hah. It's your snobbish achievement-oriented attitude that's responsible for the fucked-up situation in the tech sector in the first place. Aggressive, stupid, and arrogant, that's what it is.
Yes, the best jobs, promotions, titles, money, etc. should go to those who work for it. Well I fucking worked for it at a four-year institution, and I had to sit home for the summer after I busted my ass for 6 months trying to find an internship. But YOU assume that, because I didn't spend ALL my time doing it, that I don't deserve anything. Well, REALLY? Maybe I should just walk away from the industry altogether, because I don't obviously have the obssessive/compulsive brainwashed dedication it takes to slave away for snotty brainless dot-com managers who can't even run a simple business right.
I'm not saying natural born white people have a disadvantage for working hard... they actually have the advantage of racial bias and fluent English on their side, sadly. But if you've been paying attention in the last 10 years in this country, top notch colleges put diversity ahead of achievement, and therefore you wind up with the best schools accepting all the rich white kids and a lot of normal, but super-achieving, foreign and rural-based students. I know, cause I had the same exact problem getting into HIGH SCHOOL, as it was that competitve!!! Talk about a fucking rat race.
Anyway, the foreign kids have nothing better to do than to work their asses off... after all, if they want to keep their sponsorship, they better be the best! I certainly admire that kind of tenacity and dedication to work, but I've said before, I don't need to lay those extreme expectations on myself... they would occlude my other goals in life, such as eliminating stress, keeping my friends and family important, and maintaining my interests outside of the field of computers.
Unfortunately, the shortsighted market decides to hire skills over brains, and the rat race continues. Granted, it's definitely a reward for a lot of hard work, but I achieved a lot in college myself... I have an honors minor, two internships, and I'm provably very intelligent. And yet, I don't even think that entitles me to anything... I have to work hard to get it. But right now there's no opportunites on the market, and even these CMU kids getting internships are gonna get royally shafted when they graduate and their former employers decide not to retain their previously loyal interns for a career. So then they start from square one, where I am right now. I can't be bitter, really... they wasted more time doing useless hard work and they can't do better than me, so they should be bitter toward me!
Not only did I not ask for freebies, I also love how you assume I'm some party animal! How many times do you drink per week? You're probably hung over right now! And CMU students earn internships, except it's CMU, and I guarantee they get more opportunities there than other students in CS programs do. Hey, I got into CMU in the first place but decided not to go, why can't I get a internship at Microsoft? (I applied but didn't get one last summer) Because I went to another school? Do we really not work as hard at my school, one of the top 25 public schools in the nation and certainly in the upper tier of prestige? My school has a very good reputation. But the simple matter is, CMU students do get more opportunites than we did. It wouldn't be so bad if the hiring market wasn't totally fucked up and if all you Gen X people didn't crash the industry with all these high-flying ideas that sunk to the bottom.
I don't pity myself, though... I just curse out those of you who are ridiculous enough to continue on this track. I say, "Don't want to hire me? Your loss." One of my interview companies, a fast growing telecommunications company in the area, about two months ago told me that I was overqualified and that I'd probably get bored. I'm confident, I'm smart, and I didn't waste my time learning all kinds of skills that will be obsolete in a year - I went after general knowledge, and now I can learn anything easily and adapt to any situation. Additionally, I'm a normal person and I'm easy to work with. Tell me that this makes me a far worse job candidate than someone who can only say that they have "1 year + Java".
That last line is the clincher though. Do you have prospective candidates escorted out of the building on a regular basis? People like you deserve to lick the crap out of public toilets. Then we'll see what happens, we'll see if you can maintain your hubris when the shit hits the fan for you.
Damn that's a rosy picture... but then again, you're at CMU.
I just graduated from a respectable school with a good CS department, and here's what I found about internships... I couldn't get any. Well, actually, I did get TWO, but I struggled every summer to find them, and had little to no luck.
Yea, the one internship was with school for a class I had, and I had to take a lot of initiative to get into that program, but I did it, and that's a feather in my cap. The other internship, well, I had to PAY out $200 to get it. Oh, and both were totally unpaid. And I've been looking during the summer for the past three years, and in the past two years I've gotten absolutely stonewalled looking for internships or part-time tech positions. Maybe because I was living in one place for college and looking in another place where I wanted to be, but I had constrictions on where I actually had to live for the summer and that's just my tough luck.
The internship market is NOT easy. Companies doing massive layoffs are not quick to take on interns, as they represent an expense they don't need at this point. The lack of companies to accept internships after the recent failings is killing the market as well. Finally, there's a whole bunch of kids like you competing cutthroat for these positions... and I didn't want to go here, but when it comes to me, Mr. Normal whitebread college student who has a non-tech related part time job and has friends in his spare time, I can't compete with any of those foreign-descent kids at CMU that work all the time, dedicate every second of their being to being a total CS freak, and who never stop to smell the roses. Those are unrealistic expectations to lay on myself, and I'm glad that I am who I am, at the expense of me not being a smug, cocky bastard who doesn't know how to talk to real people or hasn't seen the sun in 5 years just so that they can work for someone else the rest of their lives.
Not that I'm insinuating you're a smug cocky bastard, but I've met many of that type. Especially from CMU. Hopefully working at MS doesn't do worse things to your demeanor.
Oh by the way, I got into CMU, but I chose not to go there... no girls and no social life. But it's a good school for people willing to put in that level of work. I'm just saying, not everyone can be that guy, and not everyone should have to be. And I disagree with the concept that only the top 1% of applicants should be offered anything decent at this point... which is pretty much what happened in your case. The wealth and knowledge should be spread a little.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy the newspaper and look through the classifieds...
Well, Starbucks ain't paying 9+ an hour, but yea, that's out there.
FYI I'm doing what you went through, although I have to admit I'm living in NJ for the same rent and living somewhat ideally at the moment. Not that I can do much going out and spending, but I have what I have from college and I'm happy with it. I also have a seasonal job to hold me over, but it's not the cure to my problems.
I did want to dispute you on the availability of part-time, menial, and/or temporary work. Tech people have three big problems with that right now:
1. They aren't the most qualified people for the job. Believe it or not, teenagers in high school are more qualified to work at the supermarket than we are. Why? Cause they fit the needs of the employer better, in the eyes of the employer. We're just gonna run off when we get a real job. They might stay longer. I know, cause I went through this already with a store manager...
2. They are overqualified. Being overqualified scares people. Especially that big bad tech resume... there's what I call the "technical resume conundrum". Basically, if you're applying to a technical field, anything that's not specific to the field is irrelevant and should be left off (that camp counseling job with the Special Olympics for example), as it only pushes out of the way more things that you can tell white lies about in the technical field. But, apply for a job anywhere else with a technical resume, and you won't get the job - all that mumbo jumbo scares off the prospective employers, and your resume doesn't seem to contain any down-to-earth business experience anyway.
3. Finally, and this is the killer: The market is flooded with service and temporary job seekers at the moment... especially because it's the summer and all the kids are home, but more so because of the layoffs in every sector. If you live in a substantially large urban area (like NY), the chance of landing a really cushy job over $6 an hour is almost nil, cause there's thousands of poor people that would take that pay in a second, and thousands of temps who are in line already at the local staffing agency. But working for $6 an hour doesn't pay $600 a month rent unless you work 160 hours a month part time... which is possible, certainly, but then you have utilities, car insurance, medical coverage, food, gas for the car, etc... so basically look at working 60 hours part time a week, most likely at 2 or 3 different jobs. And when does that leave you time each day to look for another job? It's not like you're working in the office and have a computer to use to hit Monster.com every 1/2 hour... (granted, that scenario is bleak... working 40 hours a week at $12 an hour is definitely enough to cover expenses, I agree on that... but still, it's been 3 weeks that I've been home, and nothing has appeared yet. I'm patient, though)
Remember those things, be more aggressive, and use every little last bit of networking power you have... and you might find something. I hope I do... I'm a BS in CIS with an MIS minor and two internships completed at big companies, plus I know what I'm doing, but it hasn't been enough - yet.
As a recent college grad who has been looking for a job for 6 months now, in vain, I can definitely back this up. Wanna see what came in my inbox today from Dice.com??? ...
"Software Opportunity for BSCS and EE Honors Graduates or candidates just graduating from a Masters programming CS or EE. Candidates mush have a GPA of 3.9+ from a top tier school. Also considering candidates with 1 year of experience but the same academic requirements apply (GPA 3.9+)."
Even the job title was "Junior Software Engineer (GPA 3.9+), BSEE or BSCS". This isn't typical, though; the typical listing is one of two things, either "This is NOT an entry level position, no entry level candidates please, entry level candidates suck" (about 85% of the listings online) or it's something like this: "Looking for bright young motivated enthusiastic individual fresh out of college, great entry level position... Requirements: 2+ years employment non-educational experience in Java, C++, Web Design, WebSphere, Flash, Perl, Cold Fusion, ASP, AS/400, DB2, COBOL, NT, SMS, SMS Installer, Oracle, TCP/IP, IOS, and anything else the HR department found in a computer dictionary today".
And there's the days when my Dice.com jobhunter subscription returns a blank page. That's like opening the classifieds and seeing that the help wanted section was replaced with the TV listings.
Luckily, my rent and living expenses are not that high, I can fall back on my parents for some things, and a seasonal job is holding me over for at least a few months, if not more. But the best of luck to all you Valley people... what can I say, move to Mexico and work for an American car company down there...
- then you have a Linux distro that spans 10 DVDs just so you can include every single doo-dad program (and its libraries) on the planet. Next thing you know, MS starts advertising themselves as the quick and easy OS that needs only one CD to install. That, my friends, is hell.
There's a difference between learning the stuff in your spare time and needing to have 1 or 2 years experience in a real job to answer most of the classified ads on the market. I never wanted to learn any languages just for the hell of it, but even if I did, I would have had to do something serious with that knowledge to reap the benefit of having spent ANY time with it. Even my college experience in the stuff I learned is not good enough for most of these HR-dept. placed job listings.
I was happy enough in college doing school, working a part time job, and reading Slashdot to keep familiar with things. Perhaps I would have served my own knowledge well by doing some more independent study with programming topics, but the only thing that would have helped me get a job would have been to work at a local corporation for one or two years while in school doing that stuff. Otherwise... hey, I've got all the free time in the world right now, and my roommate is taking a Java class and he's got a book on it, so I could learn from him. But that doesn't meet the lofty expectations employers have for entry-level candidates right now...
LOL... that's the funniest thing I've read today. Granted, it's only 9am but...
Yea I ran into that problem with my compilers class last semester. Half the class did too. Like, we're trying to write a lexical analyzer, using Lex, and I wrote the whole thing, it didn't work, and couldn't figure out what the friggen problem was... and it was that exact problem, I corrected everything to == and it compiled fine. At that point I hadn't touched C++ in about 2 years. I hate college.
This is a great idea, and it's exactly what my CS program did in college. We learned C, C++, Lisp, SPARC Assembly, and Prolog at least in the core cirriculum. Java, SQL, several flavors of Lisp, and perhaps some other programming-type languages were taught in elective courses. VB was available in the business department.
The major problem is that after all this time spent on DIFFERENT languages, I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none... I don't even feel comfortable coding C++ anymore just because I haven't done it for at least 2 1/2 years: it wasn't asked of me toward the end of my program. The only above language that I did NOT get to take is Java, because of scheduling difficulties, and now I sorely regret that... because now I'm looking for a part time job to make ends meet as a recent BS-CS grad with an MIS minor and two completed internships. Yea, life sucks sometimes, but whatever.
Point is, I may have a diverse background in languages, but that doesn't help me professionally. I still wonder why I spent all that time learning all those languages and no one made sure that I would be able to apply my skills in the real world.
I mean, if you're gonna teach a course on a subject, maybe you shouldn't design it around trying to make money off the concept. But if you're going to assemble a department and an educational program that people will be paying in excess of $20,000 a year to enroll in, then perhaps more than FOR loops and system calls should be included in the bunch.
This is the problem with Java though. Teaching Java instead of C++ is a cheap way out... it's not supplementing a good program with job skills, it's replacing a good program with the language of the year. It's the dumb way of answering the question of "How are we ever going to use this stuff?" Instead of teaching them what they should know, they'll teach them what they want to know. That's not always good. In this case, it's flat out horrible. But I suppose it'll make many people happy as long as no one figures out that a Java-based CS program is perhaps as bad as all the Visual Basic courses they teach over in the business school...
Although I'm not one for censorship, the idea that someone has to IDENTIFY themselves when they say something is a fine concept in my eyes. Yes, there are certain cases where anonymity is a nice thing, but it's a priviledge, not a right in my eyes.
In this context, commercial entities must not send unsolicited mail without providing some sort of identification of origin... but how bad could that be? I mean, how shady must a company be to provide a service without providing accurate reply-to information? Perhaps I do approve of anonymity in private communications, but certainly not in commercial ones... I like to be able to opt-out of spam. And I do receive newsletters and e-mails from businesses intentionally, so I'm not against the concept of commercial mail; this ruling only helps us out.
As for the people who now have to reveal themselves to their victims: oh boo-hoo. You had the opportunity to use a novel marketing mechanism, and your industry blew it by abusing the priviledge, and now we want to take it away from you because of that. Or, not even take it away, but give ourselves some way to avoid the inconvenience caused by some of you porn/penis enlargement/make money/win a trip to Portugal freaks.
I look forward to commercial e-mail that doesn't abuse my attention span or my inbox in the future.